Looking after your mental health and wellbeing
Dear Strathclyde student,
A very warm welcome to Strathclyde, whether you are starting university for the first time, or are returning to a new level of study.
I am contacting you to outline the range of mental health and wellbeing services available from the Disability & Wellbeing Service. As a University community, we encourage everyone to prioritise their wellbeing and look after their mental health. We also understand that university life can be challenging at times – please remember that we are here to support you.
Even if you feel you don’t need support right now, please keep this information close at hand in case you, or someone you know, needs it in the future.
Referrals and Weekday Services
Students with concerns about their mental health or wellbeing can access same-day initial support and advice from our Early Intervention Counselling Team. Referrals can be made by emailing the Disability & Wellbeing Service on disability-wellbeing@strath.ac.uk
The Service also offers daily mental health and wellbeing Zoom drop-in sessions where students can obtain direct access to advice and support from one of our trained advisers/counsellors. Running at 2pm on weekdays students can access the drop-in using the Zoom details that were included in the email we sent you on 24 September 2021.
24/7 Mental Health Phone and Digital Support Service
In addition to our weekday services, we are working with Spectrum Life to offer a phone and digital mental health support line – this is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
The 24/7 Student Support Service is a confidential, in-the-moment service that provides support on numerous topics including: stress, anxiety, low mood, financial worries, loss & grief, relationship problems, substance abuse issues and much more.
You can access the service through a confidential, freephone telephone line, an online chat function through the platform or by requesting a call back.
Access this service directly by phone or register to the platform below:
Freephone UK: 0800 0318227
INT: 00353 1 518 0277
Register now on the Spectrum Life platform and mobile app.
Pro Tip: Use Google Chrome to ensure the best performance of the platform!
SilverCloud Online Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
If you're worried, feeling low or stressed, or finding it hard to sleep, you may want to explore our online mental health programme from SilverCloud. SilverCloud offers secure, confidential and immediate access to a range of CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) programmes tailored to your individual needs. It will help you identify key issues and offers activities to help you overcome them.
Rape Crisis
Our Rape Crisis service offers support for students who have experienced sexual violence at any time in their lives, or who are looking for information around consent. Further information including contact details are available on our web pages.
How to Create Wellbeing and Happiness – Online Module
Our in-house “How to Create Wellbeing and Happiness” programme is now available to all students on MyPlace and we strongly encourage you to work through the module. The in-depth module is designed to help you develop independent strategies to enhance and maintain a positive sense of wellbeing.
Wellbeing Programmes
We offer a wellbeing training programme with 12 psychoeducational courses on offer to students this semester. Topics include: mindfulness; managing stress and anxiety.
Further information, including details of how to book, is available to students on MyPlace.
Wellbeing Contact
As part of our commitment to supporting student mental health and wellbeing, we are asking all students, when registering, to provide additional details of a trusted individual to be their ‘wellbeing contact’.
Providing us with this information will enable us to contact this trusted individual if we have serious concerns about your wellbeing and will help us to better support you.
If you haven’t already done so, we are asking you to provide this information on your Pegasus record. You can find out more about the wellbeing contact initiative on our webpages.
Wishing you a happy and healthy year.
Best wishes,
Gill Watt
Director of Student Experience